This is Thomas Mayer's blog about vacuum tube audio, to share updates about new amplifiers and preamplifiers and ELROG vacuum tubes.

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

High End 2016 in Munich : Retrospective

Hi!

The show is over. All the equipment is back home safely. Time to write down some final thoughts and impressions.

It has been a great show. Lot's of fun. But only after it's over one realises that it is quite an exhausting task to pull it off, both physically and mentally. Hauling all the equipment over, setting it up, making sure it sounds right. And then of course also to fill 4 days with music which shows the quality of the equipment, but which is at the same time fun and entertaining.

Based on the feedback we got and the mood in our room we had the impression that we managed to do a good job. Of course there is some nervousness before the show if all will go well. Especially since we did not have a chance to try the configuration which we demoed up front.

What was well known and proven was the electronics together with Wolf's SON speakers, since I use them myself. New to the show was Bernd's Kinea turntable.

It did a great job and I will get one for my system, equipped with Bernd's Arrow arm.

This was the version we used for playing stereo records. For monos Bernd set up a separate turntable with his reference arm and the Tedeska mono cartridge, which was a highlight for me. Here a video of this set up playing:

We decided on relatively short notice to also team up with Ze'ev Schlik of PureAudioProject with his Trio15 speaker. During set up in Munich was the first time we could listen to this speakers driven by my amps.

They turned out to play very well together:

Such events are also always great to discover new music. Some people bring their own records and we are always happy to play visitor's vinyl. My personal highlight was a record of a genre completely new to me. At one day the producer of a label which publishes contemporary classical chinese music visited our room. He brought one of his records.

The whole room listened in awe when we payed this record and applauded the producer. This record deserves it's own post. Stay tuned for that.

It was a great experience as in the previous years and I am looking forward to the High End 2017. I would like to thank Ze'ev, Bernd and Wolf for the phantastic team work. A special thanks to Hyun Lee of Tedeska for providing his excellent mono cartridge and to Thomas Fast of fastaudio for the acoustic room treatment.

Thank you to the High End Society for keeping up the tradition with this show and for providing such a great venue to present our products to the public.

And last but not least a big big Thank You to the visitors for all the feedback and good discussions. Without you the show would be nothing.